Let's have a look at these early
efforts for history's sake and because of the way developments
back then are still strangely echoed today.

Banking1883
One day the teenaged Parker boys were playing one of the games
meant to teach a moral lesson, Everlasting, and felt
bored. George decided to modify the game by adding lettered cards
and a borrowing rule and came up with Banking where the new
objective was to become the richest player by winning
speculations. A speculation began when a lettered card was played
and ended when another card of the same letter was played. The
winner was the one who eventually claimed all the cards. To avoid
this, players could borrow cards from the bank at 10% interest
(borrow ten cards, pay eleven). Partnerships could be formed and
profits shared.

Banks were very popular during this period and seen as the way to
have a secure fortune as opposed to the unregulated stock and
bond exchanges where greed and ruin was documented in the papers
every day.

George and his friends liked the game so much that he
courageously had
500 copies printed up and successfully peddled them to
Massachusetts
area retailers, eventually clearing a profit of $80 (worth about
$1440
in today's terms).

Hmmm, using cards for dual purposes, one of them money:
remind anyone of a recent card game set on a Caribbean island?

Baker's Dozen and
Famous Men1894
Still in high school, George published these two games in his
senior year.
The second was invented by one of his instructors, a Mr.
Morrison.
They were not as successful.

Ivanhoe and
The Dickens Game1885
In this year he published his first catalog and arranged for a
distributor
to carry his games throughout New England. A new concept was
born: the tie-in
game. Without any explicit licensing of these faraway British
authors, he
offered card games containing quotations and illustrations based
on their works.

The much larger competitors of this period included, first,
McLoughlin Brothers with a broad line of games and storybooks,
Milton Bradley who made mainly
educational games and Selchow & Righter who made toys and
had a big seller with Parcheesi.

Chivalry1887
His marketing copy for the game read as follows:

"The object is simple: move two pieces into your opponent's goal
or eliminate all but one of your opponent's pieces. In a matter
of minutes, you'll learn the moves. The Jump. The Capture. And
the Power Play. The rest is up to you. Make your moves
courageously or cautiously. But always be on guard. One move can
quickly change the entire complexion of the game.

Proving that he was a real gamer, this more challenging game was
the
one that Parker loved best. However, the public did not agree and
sales
were anemic. Parker concluded that the game was too skillful and
scientific.

This would not be the last time that the general public found a
game too
difficult.

Mansion of Happiness1888
The W. & S.B. Ives Company, along with the McLoughlins and
the Parkers,
was yet another set of brothers who made games, but in 1888 the
last brother
died and the Parkers were able to acquire their titles including
this one
invented by a Miss Anne W. Abbott in 1830.
Daughter of a Salem clergyman, she was also the inventor of
Authors.

It was a simple roll and move game as players tried to reach the
Mansion
at the center, but every copy was hand-painted on an assembly
line. It
stayed in the catalog for three decades.

The New Round Game of Tiddledy
Winks1888
Proving that toys and games have always gone together, or that
maybe what
we consider a board game was or should be much less strict than
it is,
this big hit started in Britain. The Parker Bros. caught early
wind of it
and applied for the US trademark and for a long time tried to
defend it,
but it didn't work.
Every other publisher already mentioned and several more marketed
their
own versions.

Office Boy Game1889
The country was in love with the novels of Horatio Alger in which
young men rose from obscurity to conquer all, just by being good.
This game attempted to adapt the Mansion of Happiness
setup
to cash in on the phenomenon by positing players as office boys
who travel around a spiral track that uses hexagonal shaped
spaces. Some spaces direct a piece to advance or go back. The
first player to reach the center space becomes Head of the Firm
and wins the game.

Innocence Abroad1889
The idea of basing a game on a popular book was taken even
further with this takeoff on Mark Twain's
The Innocents Abroad,
note the crucial spelling change. Few realize it today, but this 1869
work was Twain's bestselling book during his own lifetime. An author
who always had a very close eye on the bottom line, he apparently was
not about to let the Parkers get away with this one and for the first
time the company paid a licensing fee. To make up the revenue, for the
first time the Parkers placed ads in Boston and New York newspapers
which helped make the firm a household name.

The game itself is another roll and move race across the water
and to the land beyond with many rewards and mishaps along the way.

Not to be outdone by the way, Twain himself also decided to try his hand
at game design and publishing. In 1891 he created
Mark Twain's Memory Builder
and came back in 1893 with
Significa & Trivia.
Both were trivia games. He never seems to have made a game connected to
one of his novels. Perhaps he felt that would sully them.

The United States Game1890
Also known as Across the Continent, this was a roll and
move game
for perhaps a different market than Mansion of Happiness
targeted to lady players.
The playing surface was actually printed on the bottom of the box
and
the box was over three feet long.

So market segments were beginning to be identified.

This game may well have been the inspiration for the later
Boxcars (Rail Baron).

The Robin Hood Game1893
Before the worldwide dominance of film, Robin Hood was another popular
literary property and, unlike the above Innocents Abroad, one
long since out of copyright. The game itself was yet another
roll-and-move affair.

The game is
Old Maid in reverse;
to win players attempt to hold on to the unique Alice card.

For more information on other Alice games, visit
the site
of the provider of these pictures: Rob Stone.

Pillow-Dex1897
The novelty or action game was not a one time fluke either.
Another game that came out of London consisted of a string and
a balloon. The string formed a demarcation line between the
players
who hit the balloon back and forth to one another using only the
backs of their hands and trying not to be the one who let it
fall.

This early party game was quite a flavor of the month for a while
and earned the firm a lot of profits. It wouldn't be the last
time
a game firm sold something for big money
that it might not be quite so proud of.

War in Cuba;
The Siege of Havana;
The Battle of Manila; and
The Philippine War1898
The firm kept trying to figure out the public consciousness and
market games to these themes. But these four games that tracked
the major developments of the Spanish-American War only did some
business for a short time. But they did tend to give the company
a red white and blue image.

Actually these were target shooting games using die cut soldiers
which
were shot down by handheld cannons firing spring-loaded wooden
bullets,
so this continues the action game trend.

Ping Pong1902
It was continued even further with this, yet another London
import.
The fascinating thing about the game back then was that celluloid
(a plastic resin formed by mixing of cellulose nitrate and
camphor)
had been used to make a hollow ball for the first time.
The balls were quite flammable it was quite popular in those days
to strike a match, hold it under the ball and watch it disappear
in
a flash. Who knows how many sets were sold for just this reason
as
with the significant profits earned the company was able to buy
out
its not-so-silent partners and greatly expand their operation.
They also opened up an office in New York's famous Flatiron
building.

The words
"ping" and "pong" described what people thought they heard while
the
game was being played.

This famous card game was invented by Harry E. Gavitt and
published in 1903
by Gavitt Publishing and Printing. In that game players deal and
trade cards
to corner the railway stock market.

From here things get murky. The game was adapted by the psychic
Edgar Cayce
to change the topic to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He
approached
the Parkers and sold them the
complete rights and then disappeared. It is not clear to
me whether Cayce had any right to do what he did or whether
the Parkers were fair to Gavitt.

George Parker claimed to have modified
the game slightly by adding the Bull and Bear cards and it was a
huge seller
as 750,000 copies, at fifty cents each, were shipped in just
fourteen months.
In fact the company was unable to keep up with demand and to help
used three other card makers including the US Playing Card
Company
(who now got into games beyond just the traditional cards).

Flinch1905
With a million copies of Pit sold, the company was
naturally sold
on the idea of card games. It hoped its next hit would be this
simple but
challenging game of getting rid of ones cards by placing them on
piles in
numerical sequence. The game was invented by A.J. Patterson and
licensed
from the Flinch Card Company. It ended up outselling Pit
for 1905.

Block1905
Not every card game worked out well. This one had five suits and
players
tried to get rid of their cards à la Crazy Eights.
The Block cards changed the suit and others added to one's score.
Strangely it didn't work, though these are the same elements that
made
Uno very popular much later.

Rook1906
Still on the card game trail, this was targeted for those whose
Puritan
ethic prevented them from playing standard playing cards
containing kings,
queens and jacks because these cards had evolved from Tarot cards
which
were considered the work of the devil. So George and his wife
Grace
replaced the four top cards with number cards, added a 14 card
and
changed the suits into the colors red, yellow, green and black.
The rules
were adapted from ten different traditional card games
and the title is said to come from a type of crow.

Sales were slow at first but built over the years. The company
was now
reaching a rough parity with McLoughlin Bros.

In the next few years the Parkers spent a great deal of their
time on
wooden puzzles so let's skip ahead to 1914.

Pollyanna and
Broadway1914
Due to advances in book production around this time, people began
to read
more and
Pollyanna
by Eleanor Hogman Porter was one of the more
popular titles, especially for young women so the company decided
to license
the right to produce a game. Basically it was
Parcheesi
with some option to take another route which was longer, but
safe.
This met with success and the game stayed in the catalog for four
decades.

Having found the young girls market, they also brought out
Broadway
which was basically the same game, but aimed at young boys.

There were more war-related games as the country entered World
War I,
but as they do not seem to have been all that remarkable, let's
skip ahead
to the 1920's.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz1922
Once again there was an attempt to cash in on popular book. By
this time
it was not only a book, but also a very successful Broadway play
and a
series of films, both produced by L. Frank Baum himself, though
not the
famous Judy Garland movie which was not to arrive until 1939.
The history of the Oz phenomenon is wonderfully documented in
The Annotated Wizard of Oz: A Centennial Edition.
As for the game, it does not seem to have been particularly
wonderful,
apart from its illustrations.

Mah-Jong1923

This game seems to have first reached American shores in 1893,
appearing
at the Chicago Exposition. Joseph Babcock, an American engineer
working
for Standard Oil in Soochow, China, learned to love it there and
tried to
sell copies to the United States, but without success. To improve
its
chances he added numerals to the tiles and introduced it to other
expatriates
in Shanghai in 1920 where it was a big success. To get a
trademark he
changed the name from
Mah Jong
to
Mah-Jongg
and convinced an Hammond, a lumber importer to sell copies in San
Francisco.

Looking for larger sales, he hired an agent who approached the
Parkers, who
brought out a few copies, but experienced disappointing sales in
New York
department stores. They were also doubtful because of too much
knowledge.
There were Mah Jong sets in the local museum which the
Parkers
assumed were centuries old. They reasoned that if the game had a
wide
appeal it would have been played out by now. However, they were
fooled as
the game's rich appearance made it seem far older than it really
was. In
fact it had been invented only in the mid-nineteenth century.
So the Parkers averred they had no further interest and
instead turned to
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Meanwhile sales in San Francisco shot up and there was a steady
buzz about
the game throughout California. Many other firms started
importing sets and
publishing their own rule books, leading to a very confusing
proliferation
of different rule sets, which continues to this day by the way.

Finally the Parkers got interested, licensed Babcock's trademark
and importing a wide range of sets sold at prices from $2.50 to
$25.00.
But once again, the trademark proved meaningless as many
companies
participated in the craze. Still, the Parkers could have done
much better
had they only gotten in a big way at the beginning.

The game also spawned a number of Chinese accessories such as
robes, screens,
rugs, lamps and food, all of which were to be available while the
game was
played. But the game itself grew so popular that it was sixth
among Chinese
exports in 1923-4. But by 1929 it had faded from public view and
only
dedicated aficianadoes continued to partake.

Tell It to the Judge1925

As America moved into more modern technologies such as radio and
phonographs,
the emphasis shifted away from games on books to games endorsed
by a celebrity.

This game about highway safety
was endorsed by the comedic singer Eddie Cantor whose picture
appeared
with the game. The idea was to reach a nightclub spending the
least amount
of money on tickets and so on.

The Game of Lincoln Highway1926

This game was meant to latch on to the growing importance of the
American
automobile as well as the highway expansion across the continent.
The map
in this racing game was said to be accurate enough to be used for
navigation.
It was a modest seller, but nothing compared to Touring
(see below).

Lindy's Hop-Off Game;
Lindy; and
We1927
Another type of celebrity was provided by the new age of heroes
including
the Jack Dempseys, Babe Ruths and Charles Lindberghs. All three
of the
above games were based on the latter's Atlantic crossing.

Lindy was basically the same game as
Touring
transposed to a new setting.
Touring
had been invented on behalf of the Wallie Dorr Company, but I
have no
information on what may have inspired its inventor who was
possibly
Wallie Dorr. Nevertheless, it was good enough to get US patent
no. 836532.
Probably the patent had expired. In this period Parker bought the
rights
from the Wallie Dorr Company and in the meantime there was a
lawsuit between the Parkers and Nucraft who called theirs
The New Lindy Flying Game.
It's not clear what the order of events was here, but one can
well imagine
that both the Lindy games were out and the Parkers wanting to use
legal
means to stamp out the competing product. At any rate
the much larger Parker Bros. won and the latter game is much
harder to find
today, and probably more valuable to collectors.

Touring1928
When the Lindbergh craze died down, the company decided to bring
back
the original as well.

It's outside this scope of this study, but in 1954, when Parker
had
acquired 40% of the French games company Miro (and also a large
part
of the British company Waddingtons), French inventor Edmond
Dujardin
created a modified version of the game by adding more hazards and
remedies as well as the driving ace (coupe fourré) cards.
Miro presented the game to Parker who launched it in 1963
and discontinued this one.

Camelot1929
This was the earlier Chivalry, brought back for another go
with a few changes. Celebrities Laurel & Hardy were hired
for
publicity photos that showed them playing the game, which got its
rules included in the book Games For Two (1930) by Mrs.
Prescott
Warren. It was really a critical choice rather than a popular one
though.

As the Great Depression began, the fascination for cheap puzzles
returned,
but now this business started to wane for the Parkers as even
cheaper
cardboard replaced plywood in the public's taste.

Sorry!1934
This was another game that the Parker's owed to London and for
which they
purchased the US rights. It was really just a
Parcheesi
variant where cards replaced the dice and there were a few
special paths.

This was the first game to bear the firm's logo of: the
founder's signature.
It replaced the sailing ship image which was accompanied by the
words
"Made in Salem, Mass., USA."

But by now the company was in deep trouble as the depths of the
Depression
had set in and they had no stable seller.

Monopoly1935
It was at this time that the famous Monopoly entered their
lives
and saved the company. It was also around this time that George
S. Parker,
born in 1866 or 1867, retired from day to day operations at the
company.

The story of this game has been told and re-told many times so it
is only
worth recounting a few less well known details here. One was that
actually
Parker had met Elizabeth J. Magie, inventor of the original
Landlord's Game much earlier, back in the early 1920's,
which
he only remembered when he went to patent the game and found it
already
patented. So in fact he again had had first chance at a best
seller
and not recognized its appeal. And ironically the patent which
now stood
in his way had been urged by him on Magie (as a means of
protecting her
idea) who probably wouldn't have thought of it on her own.

The other interesting fact is that many thousands of these games
were
given away free to American servicemen overseas during World War
II.
No doubt this served as great advertising and had a lot to do
with
creating the popularity that the game enjoys to this very day.

There's a whole lot more in the
Philip E. Orbanes book than has been discussed here.
I heartily recommend that you
find yourself a copy
to enjoy.